Nykredit this (Monday) morning began its first sale of euro denominated bonds in this season’s Danish auctions, after DLR Kredit overcame recent Moody’s rating actions last week and Nordea Kredit finished its sales on Thursday.

DLR Kredit sold Dkr2.3bn (Eu301m) and Eu400m of April 2013 bullet bonds out of capital centre B on Thursday and Friday, respectively. The krone bonds were sold at a level of 46bp over Cita and with a bid-to-cover of 1.97 times, and the euros at 50bp over Eonia and a bid-to-cover of 2.15 times.

The bank was considered the most vulnerable to having its sales affected by a latest round of rating actions by Moody’s on Danish banks last month, but Henrik Højby, group treasurer at DLR Kredit, said that this had not materialised.

“We had the fear that it might have an impact,” he told The Covered Bond Report, “but we don’t see it as having had any impact.”

DLR’s remaining sales take place from tomorrow (Tuesday) until Thursday.

Nordea Kredit sold a total of Dkr11.9bn and Eu150m.

Market participants had noted that, unusually, Nordea and Nykredit bonds had traded at the same level when the auctions began, but had expected the difference to widen because Nordea typically trades about 10bp tighter than Nykredit.

“The first day the difference was zero,” said Jacob Skinhøj, chief analyst at Nordea Markets, “but that has widened to 2bp.”

Nordea Kredit achieved a spread of 36bp over swaps on average on its one year ARMs, only about 2bp tighter than Nykredit’s average of 38bp over. The bid to cover on the Nordea auctions ranged from 1.87 to 4.92, roughly in line with last March’s auctions, according to Skinhøj.

Nykredit entered its sixth day of sales today and auctioned euro bonds for the first time. It sold Eu50m of ROs, rated Aa3, from capital centre G at a yield of 1.2% and with a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.20. Results of a larger sale of euro denominated SDOs from capital centre H were not available by the time The CBR went to press.

“I would expect pretty good demand for our euro bonds,” Lars Mossing Madsen, chief dealer, first vice president, Nykredit, told The CBR ahead of today’s sales. “There was pretty strong demand for euro bonds in the last auction, so I would expect interest to continue to increase.

He said he also expected the level against swaps to be tighter on euro bonds than in last year’s March auctions.

“I would expect the level to be more or less the same as in Danish krone,” he said, putting this at 35bp-40bp over swaps.

Last March Nykredit offered a spread of 40bp over, compared with 37bp over in December.

The Danish issuer has been targeting greater international participation, with Group Chief Executive Peter Engberg Jensen, for example, holding an update for investors in London at the end of February.